Wednesday, July 19, 2006

The question is rhetorical

Decidely not Aaro's finest hour; the article is just a piece of disingenuousness about the word "proportionate". Aaro has always tended toward the fallacy of Sir Humphrey Appleby's Politican's Syllogism ("something must be done - this is something - therefore we must do it") and this is the reductio ad absurdum. Inaction is intolerable in the face of Hezbollah's provocation, therefore we write a blank cheque and invite the current government of Israel to cash it.

(Parenthetically, I note that as Israeli politics has got more right-wing and more directed toward Bush's America since 2000, the conduct of its military has got stupider, more belligerent and less successful. If anyone can think of a version of "dogs get to look like their owners" that doesn't sound quite so anti-Semitic in analogy, I am in the market).

Meanwhile, Aaro manages to move in five breathlessly speculative passages from the observable fact that Israel does not have a workable strategy, to the contention that an international force could not play a useful role because "Hezbollah, Syria and Iran would not agree to it" (like they're agreeing to the current situation?) and thence on to a speculation about drone-planes carrying as yet unbuilt nuclear weapons (presumably with the drone having been fundamentally and thoroughly redesigned for this purpose somewhere) and then you'd all be sorry. Not wanting to take the piss here Dave, but do you really think that you had such good luck with wild speculation about WMD last time that you thought you'd try it again?

Not so very long ago, Dave famously told us that "If nothing is eventually found, I will never believe another thing I am told by our government or that of the US, ever again". I only wish that he'd mentioned at the time that upon doing this, he decided to shift his information sources to the wilder and nuttier kind of right-wing Israeli mailing lists. I am reminded of the quote attributed to GK Chesterton.

(sorry for the late Watch btw; evil bruschettaboy is in the market for good migraine remedies as the current diet of Nurofen and tomatoes on toast is becoming wearing.

Surely the fallacy is to argue from within the paradigm that Israel is reacting to terrorism. Israel is an occupying power. Fatah, Hamas, Hizbollah and the whole Middle East have been 'reacting' to the setting up of the 'Jewish homeland' since it happened.

Secondly, there's an illusion that major powers' politics aren't going on here. We should ask, what are the US's ambitions in the Middle East? Clearly, they have their eyes on the larger prize: Iran. Iraq was a step towards Iran. Israeli actions are seen by the US as helping or not helping these major objectives. It's either silly or myopic to keep the argument to within what Israel wants, or what Israel does, or what Israel 'suffers' etc etc. Israel has been allowed/encouraged to do what it's doing because it is seen by the US as helping their overall project. Aero probably knows that, but he likes dealing with one word at a time and 'exposing' the contradictions, thereby proving that his erstwhile lefty friends are stuck in the barbecue of life. Mind you, that would be to take his encounters with strawmen at face value. They are just as likely to be cyberstrawmen.

Certainly I find the suggestion odd that Gaza shuld have immediately become a peaceful neutral zone. If Islington had been occupying Hampstead and Highate for the last twenty years, but had recently removed its troops from Hampstead Garden Suburb, would the Islingtonites really expect that the territory they had just left would not be used by the Hampsteaders for military purposes?